Mansour Hanged, Hamadeh and Zaatar Killed by Firing Squads Unesco mass murderer Ahmed Mansour hanged before the crack of dawn
Saturday as army troops killer Badieh Hamadeh and civil defense murderer Remy Zaatar died
simultaneously before firing squads at the central government prison of Roumieh east of
Beirut. Mansour's body was dangling from the gallows at one corer of the prison's
courtyard when Hamadeh and Zaatar, tied blindfolded to makeshift poles in another corner,
were shot by firing squads. An officer then advanced and fired the coup de grace into
Hamadeh and Zaatar's heads.
The families of each of the convicts were allowed to see them privately in the death-row
cells before the executions, which were dubbed by the Beirut Media Saturday as the first
and last during President Lahoud's 6-year-old regime that expires next November. In a move
obviously designed to allay local and global protests spearheaded by France, the European
Union and the London-based Amnesty International, Lahoud signed presidential decrees
Friday evening, commuting to life imprisonment six death sentences for four Lebanese, one
Egyptian and one Syrian murder convicts, An Nahar reported.
Local protestors staged a night-long sit-in at Parliament's Star Square in downtown
Beirut, branding black flags and such posters as 'thou shall not kill,' 'two crimes do not
make justice' and 'capital punishment is also a murder crime.'

From: "Liste de diffusion du Mouvement SOLIDA"
<liste@solida.org> Add to Address Book To: clhrf@yahoo.com
Subject: Communiqué de SOLIDA Press release from SOLIDA
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:50:15 +0100
(la version française suit)
ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY IN LEBANON
SOLIDA (Support for Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) is greatly concerned by the resumption
of capital executions in Lebanon after a 5-year suspension of the practice.
At present there are 30 individuals who are on death row in Lebanon. Three of them are
slated for execution as early as January 17, 2004. While no one denies the reality of the
crimes committed by these individuals and the suffering they may have caused others,
SOLIDA is nonetheless concerned by the fact that Lebanon is preparing to impose on them an
irreversible punishment, and calls upon all concerned authorities to agree to the
necessity of permanently abolishing the death penalty in
Lebanon.Five good reasons for abolishing the death penalty in general:
1. The death penalty is a violation of the right to life enshrined in
article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
2. Is it justifiable to redress harm with harm? It is often because they
have harmed the lives of others that these individuals are condemned, and their death
sentence is therefore a violation of their own right to life. In another words, their
sentence to die is akin to punishing harm with harm.
3. As defenders of human rights, we can only observe that a sentence to
death and the detention that follows it are cruel and inhumane punishments, and as such
they violate Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
4. Statistics show that the death penalty has never been dissuasive, and
its abolition in many countries has not had any effect on crime rates.
5. There is always the risk of executing an innocent person.Lebanon and
the death penalty:
Is the death of a guilty person a genuine relief for the victims' families? Is it more
useful psychologically than a long prison sentence? Far from it. Isn't the most important
aspect of it to detain the guilty person, prevent recidivism, and accompany the victims?
In terms of arresting the guilty persons, one can say that in Lebanon it depends on
the victim! Because if the victim is a "worthy" victim in the eyes of the
authorities, the assassin will be actively hunted down and often arrested. But if the
victim is somewhat of a nuisance to the authorities, as was the case for example with
Ramzi Irani, the Lebanese Forces activist who was assassinated in May 2002, the assassin
is a priori never hunted down. It would be useless to ask why.
By the same token, arresting and sentencing criminals to death in Lebanon is not done for
the wellbeing of the victims' families or of society at large. It is done for pure media
propaganda motives. A horrible example of this was the public execution of two criminals
in Tabarja in 1998 whereby two thieves were hanged in front of the entire village for
obvious election reasons. It actually turned out that whereas one of them was guilty of a
homicide during the theft, the other thief had run away before the murder took place. In
this case, does it make sense to execute all thieves? Sadly, this public execution had one
main effect,
which was to traumatize the children who watched it, and some of whom were later reported
to have attempted to strangle their schoolmates Something to think about.
Finally, the mistakes of the judiciary in Lebanon, or rather the violations of the rights
of the accused, make it such that there is great risk of executing innocent people who
would not have benefited from a fair trial, or whose mental health may not been taken into
account, or who could not have appealed the conviction, as happen often enough in Lebanon.
The right to a fair trial, as stipulated by the international agreement pertaining to
civil and political rights and to which Lebanon is
signatory, is indeed regularly and seriously compromised.It is time for Lebanon to abolish
the death penalty.
Paris,January 15, 2004

By ASSOCIATED
PRESS
BEIRUTThe European Union and human rights groups urged Lebanon's president
Emile Lahoud on Friday to halt the scheduled executions of three convicted murderers,
which would be Lebanon's first executions in five years. Lebanese authorities
recently resumed using capital punishment, opening the way for 27 convicted murderers to
be executed. Three men were scheduled to be executed at dawn Saturday, one by hanging and
two by firing squad in the courtyard of Roumieh prison.
Fourteen people were executed in Lebanon between 1994 and 1998, the period when the
country carried out executions.
The executions are the first since 1998 and the first under Lahoud. Executions hadn't been
carried out because former Prime Minister Salim Hoss had refused to sign the death orders
during his time in office, saying execution was contrary to his convictions.
Under Lebanon's constitution, a death sentence must be approved by the president, prime
minister and minister of justice. Lahoud, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and Justice Minister
Bahij Tabarra have approved the death sentences.
A statement issued by the EU Presidency on Friday expressed "dismay" at the
Lebanese decision. "The EU calls on President Lahoud to use the authority granted to
him to reverse this decision and thus to uphold the current moratorium," the
statement said. Human rights watchdog Amnesty International urged Lahoud "to use his
powers to immediately halt the imminent execution" of the three men, as well as those
of the 24 other condemned prisoners.
"Beams of hope lit by a de facto five-year moratorium on the death penalty have been
dimmed by Lebanon's decision to kill these men," a statement said. "Amnesty
International is against the death penalty under any circumstances because of its cruelty,
and also because the death penalty, when applied, did not prove to be a deterrent for
crimes," said Nicole Choueiry, an Amnesty spokeswoman in London. The Paris-based
International Federation of Human Rights Leagues also expressed "its deepest
concern" at the announced executions. It called on authorities to commute all death
sentences and abolish the death penalty. The federation brings together rights groups from
across the world and is an advisory body to the United Nations.
Later Friday, around 150 youth, some carrying black flags, staged a sit-in near Parliament
in downtown Beirut, lying on the ground. They were to meet with other activists outside
Roumieh prison for an all-night sit-in.
"This is proof of the government's failure ... in dealing with everything including
the reasons for crime. We can only hope the executions will not go through," said
Walid Slaiby, coordinator for the National Campaign to Abolish Capital Punishment in
Lebanon. Ahmed Mansour, convicted of killing eight colleagues in a shooting spree at a
government building on July 31, 2002, will be executed by hanging. Badieh Hamadeh,
convicted of shooting to death three members of the Lebanese army intelligence service
trying to arrest him in south Lebanon on July 11, 2002, will be executed by a firing squad
along with Remy Antoine Zaatar, who is convicted of murdering two civil defense colleagues
in June 2000.
Security had been tight around the Palestinian Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in the southern
city of Sidon since Friday morning in anticipation of possible violence related to the
execution of Hamadeh, who was linked to Islamic extremists inside the camp. Sheik Maher
Hammoud, a hard-line Sunni Muslim cleric in Sidon, had warned that the execution
"will not help serve our daily efforts to strengthen security in our city."
Hamadeh took refuge in the lawless Ein el-Hilweh camp - which is off limits to the
Lebanese army - after the killings. Lebanese forces descended to the edge of the camp but
a confrontation was avoided when a Palestinian militant group delivered Hamadeh to the
army five days after the shooting.

Human rights groups criticize Lebanon's planned executions Last Updated Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:28:58
LONDON - Human rights groups and the European Union are denouncing Lebanon's decision to
resume the death penalty.
Lebanon will execute three convicted killers on Saturday, after a five-year hiatus on
capital punishment.
Two will be put to death by firing squad and one by hanging. Amnesty International says
death sentences have also been issued against 24 others, although a clemency committee has
recommended two of them have their sentences commuted to life in prison. "The
finality and cruelty inherent in the death penalty, and the lack of evidence showing it to
be a deterrent to violent crimes, make it an inappropriate and unacceptable response to
crime," said Amnesty International in a news release on its website. The EU has asked
Lebanon to ban the death penalty altogether. Under Lebanese law, both the president and
the prime minister must approve executions before they can take place. Written by CBC News
Online staff